Staff Picks: Unique Perspectives on Travel

Tue, 08/13/2024 - 2:37pm by eapearce

Travelogues don't just have to be a recounting of the traveler's experiences and itinerary on a given trip; there are so many ways to travel and so many unique perspectives on the experience of doing so. Check out some of these books that offer both guidance and musings on the art of exploring the world.

Around the World in 80 Books, by David Damrosch | Request Now
Damrosch, professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard and the Director of the Institute for World Literature, transports readers around the globe with selections of both classic and modern literature from a variety of countries. Inspired to write this book during the pandemic, when travel was highly restricted, Damrosch decided to get his travel fix by virtual global exploration through reading and literary analysis. He explores how works from around the globe shape both our view of other places and our views of our own homes. The wide range of books he explores — from classics by Virginia Woolfe and Dante, to more recent Nobel Prize-winning works by Olga Tokarczuk, Orhan Pamuk and Mo Yan, to crime fiction and fantasy epics — offer a thoughtful perspective on global problems as well as issues rooted firmly in their own time and location. Around the World in 80 Books is a “global invitation to look beyond ourselves and our surroundings, and to see our world and its literature in new ways.”

100 Parks, 5,000 Ideas, by Joseph Yogerst | Request Now
Many travelers are eager to see the beautiful national parks in North America, but it can be daunting to figure out the best time of the year to go, what activities to do once you get there, how to avoid crowds, what needs to be booked in advance… the list goes on! Enter this handy guide to parks in the US and Canada. Helpful information about the variety of activities available at each park, local accommodation options, and information about nearby attractions, restaurants, and other things to do are all a big help to trip planners. While focused on the many national parks the two countries have to offer, the guide also includes information about state and city parks that are worth visiting. You’ll be grateful for the expert tips included in here about fishing, hiking, camping, biking, exploring and more!

Kinfolk Travel: Slower Ways to See the World, by John Burns | Request Now
Kinfolk, which began as a magazine in 2011 and has expanded into a mix of print and online media (they still publish their magazine quarterly), focuses on slow living and global lifestyles. The magazine is translated into many languages and distributed in over 100 countries. They’ve begun publishing lifestyle books, including ones on entertaining, interior design, art, and, recently, travel. Kinfolk Travel invites readers to “see the world by doing less” and encourages the idea that “an attitude of discovery is more meaningful than any particular action or itinerary.” The book offers suggestions for forging meaningful connections with locals, even in just brief conversation, and for seeking out authentic experiences that truly capture the flavor, history, and importance of places. Kinfolk employs writers from all over the world, so readers will get genuine advice from people who live in the places that they may be visiting. Stunning color photographs—a staple of the Kinfolk series of books—accompany the writing and make planning a trip even more tempting.

Home is the Road, by Diane Glancy | Request Now
Diane Glancy is an award-winning Native American writer who explores travel, how we feel a sense of belonging in a place (or not!), and what home means in her 2022 book Home is the Road. An avid traveler, Glancy writes that her “sense of place is moving.” In other words, her home is often the road. But travel can be tiring and it can make demands of us that Glancy admits can be challenging, eye-opening or just plain uncomfortable. Throughout the book, Glancy writes about driving (she is often driving) and experiments with different literary styles as she traverses the land. She writes about what we see today when we look out over a landscape, and what we might have seen centuries or millennia ago and she asks both herself and the reader what lessons we might learn from the road. It’s a beautifully written and thoughtful book.